I must have pissed off the Mohair Spinning Faerie, maybe my offering of weaving a beautiful scarf was just not enough for her? Maybe a burnt offering might appease, because that is what I was about to do to this warp, while manically singing "BURN BABY BURN". This warp has been abusive to me! The white mohair is tearing after a few pics the beating of the reeds is wreaking havoc on this yarn or my tension is or both I dunno. It's been over a month and I've only woven 12" with a lot of breaks and re-tying. I've also left it on the loom after one extremely frustrating session, not only did the damn yarn break, but my hooks holding the lamms would come off every other pick, the selvage yarn kept breaking off and I just ran out of the room before, I lit the whole thing on fire. Ever see those commercials where someone takes a bat to a computer or their car because they're at their wits end, yeah I was there about two weeks ago. The loom and project has been on timeout, me too as a matter of fact since that fateful day. In the interim I went on vacation and had a great three days off with my hubby, I'll show you all some pics later this week. I came back refreshed and decided to try again before I just cut the loom loose of this warp and have a ceremonial burning festival. I rolled my beam and started fresh with a new determination. I figured my tension was the cause of the breakage plus that the beat needed to be more gentle. After about an hour I wove 18", this might just get done without much more delay this week, I'm keeping my toes crossed because Lord knows I need my fingers. As an incentive to finish, I started warping for a new baby blanket. I have these funky fuzzy yarns in baby colors and want to weave them up for a cushy, soft blankie, in the most simplest of tabby. After the current warp I need something mind numbingly simple, ahh the luxury of simple tabby dances in my mind's eye, woohooo only two shafts, two treadles and a stick shuttle, basic, simple, yet refreshing. These are the moments when I wish I would still have my RH loom, and regret selling it.

Don't those colors just scream baby, spring and Easter?

Warping Mess

I'm not a big fan of this, really someone tell me it get easier every time you do it cause this part was a serious turn off.

My mistakes:
1. The warp was too long, I cut it in half, have the rest chained up don't know if I can use it later but that's fine I can always knit it into something.
2. The warp is not wide just 48 picks, I didn't want it too wide just so I wouldn't give up, but I think I played it too safe.
3. I had no way of weighing down the front of the warp and tying it to the front beam was awkward.

My questions:
1. Does the picture below look right? (I used my knitting board as a raddle)
2. What do I use to keep the warp taut as I wind back?
3. Can I do this alone or do I need another body holding the warp?
4. If I center the warp and start in the middle, how the heck do I follow the damn draft? I reread the book twice still not clear.
5. Should I take off the extra harnesses I will not be using to thread the heddles?
6. Is warping front to back easier? (read the instruction there and wasn't really clear on that either.

Theresa, I was going to call you, but I left your number at work. I have it in my wallet now and may bother you later this week.
Definately not your average warping session, I was trained improperly with the RH and am going to need to break myself of the desire to return the buyer's money and unpack it, I confess I was really tempted yesterday to do so. My hubby has taken it to work and will UPS it tomorrow, there will be no going back once it's gone so, I guess that will be a good way to force me to learn and adapt to my Macomber and not long for the simplicity of the RH.

Planning the Maiden Warp

I was really excited yesterday with my package and forgot that we had a showing for the house. The potential buyers were there for 2 1/2 hours, they didn't leave until 7:30 pm at which point I was starving and had a headache. After we went to get something to eat and had a moment to discuss what had happened (Contract Pending) it was well after 10:00pm, to late to start a warp that would make any sense. That was really fine with me I was tired and wanted to sleep more than anything at that point. I woke up at 5:30am and decided that I needed to rummage through the yarn and find the cotton or linen I'd seen when the boxes first made it to the house. Mr. Deepend thought I was nuts, but knew that Monday was an overload to my system and just let me have my time with one of the things makes me really happy, YARN. (blogger is posting pics sideways, sorry but it seems to have a quirk today) I picked these because the only reed I have cleaned and finished is the 15 and

am limited to what I can use at the moment, but I got some Naval Jelly and woohoo is that stuff great, I'll be powering through the rusty reeds by Sunday. I forgot who suggested it in the comment, but THANK YOU, my fingers and hands love you right now.

This is the taupe looking one and it seems to be linen, burned like it was too.

This is the black it is 75% Rayon 25% Linen

These you can actually read the labels. The colors are a bit drab, but I figure I can whip something up that looks half way decent and I get to practice on the loom.

I threaded some snippets through the reed just to make sure they would work. I'm still getting the hang of the numbering system for weaving yarn and assume I can figure it out after going through the books I have. You'd think by now that would be old hat, but I've never been able to wrap my brain around it.

I'm planning on something simple to get the feel of the loom and figure out how to warp it, although I would love to use 8 harnesses I think I may get myself confused, so I want to build up to that point. Having always warped on directly to the RH, spoiled me and the Structo was a mission, but I think that was because the loom was so small it was a bit frustrating. I think since I was accustom to warping back to front I may try to do that with this one too. I have the book Learning to Weave and will have it handy as I go about working on my loom. I also plan to weave the linen yarn with each other and the same goes for the Orlon since one set is natural fiber and the other acrylic, but very soft, maybe for a scarf or shawl.

Big Giant Sigh of Relief!

I worked on my loom some more last night. I thought the easiest least painful road was to roll the warp forward on to the beam, which I did. Since the back was twisted and crossed I has some problems, but once I got to a point where I wasn't going to be able to fix it I cut the rest off about 3' then I re-tied to the back beam. and wound back with the separator. Once I was satisfied with the tension and the warp, I cut the front and re-slayed it through the reed. I never took the yarn off the heddles and that help keep it straight as I was beaming back and forth.

I really like the way it worked out nice and straight as it should be.

Then I wove a bit just to make sure everything was in place. I was still getting that renegade selvage but it broke under tension and I decided to just let it go. Since this is my practice run I can live without that one.

I want to THANK all of you for helping through this mess, I know I must sound like a blathering idiot sometimes, but I promise I will do this over and over again until I get it so that I don't feel so hopelessly lost.

Answers and more Questions

Delighted Hands:
(The cross needs to stay between the back beam and the heddles not rolled onto the back beam...you can roll them out and go without now that you have the heddles threaded.)

Peg in South Carolina says:

Also, are what I understand to be the lease sticks, are they buried under the warp? They need to be on top as they provide your guide for theading. They also help with tensioning the warp.

If this needs to happen then the sticks would work as guides? Not to hold the yarn to the beam? That's what I thought that I was suppose to do, tie them to the back beam and roll up. I must have missed something in the book, damn it. How do I keep them back there without rolling in, should I anchor them to the back bar (the black pvc covered thing in the pic? Do I need the raddle also or is that too much? I would like to try to re-do the warping tonight or Friday and see if I can get it right this time. I feel so dense and stupid, Thanks for the help.

More Warping

I threaded the heddles, which was not bad, I treadled from back to front it's easier for me because I'm use to doing that with the RH, I was going to do it front to back but got really nervous and confused. After I got through the heddles, I woven some to see if the pattern wast right, if I was going to be able to do it etc.. this is the first mug mat. I don't know about the selvages they seem so.... out there, maybe I should draw it in more? I'm also lightly tapping the yarn in with the beater.

Then I changed colors just to play around some more, I like this it's very spring/Easter-ish.

But this last pic, this is the real problem. When I beamed the warp on to the back I didn't have anything suitable as a separator for the yarn so I just went along, of course it's sloppy and the yarn is crossed and now I'm just annoyed with it and myself, more with myself than the yarn. My questions to the more experience weavers are: Can I roll the yarn forward onto the front beam insert my separator and then roll it back? Will this create a mess or can this be done, if I do it carefully? Any suggestions on how to fix?

The two sticks you see here are holding my cross, dang it I didn't think to take photos as I started sorry guys, I'm just a mess with this one.

Warping the Structo

ARRRRGGGHHHH! That's all I can say. How do you guys do this?? I'm all knotted and annoyed even with the book I followed it to a T. I'm stepping away for a day before I try to make sense of it.